This isn’t a model that has sold particularly well in the UK and Toyota is aiming to fix that with this second-generation version. The electric-only range has risen to a claimed 39 miles, and there are quite a few updates of technology and styling – and price, it turns out.

This PHEV has had its price dropped by over £3000 from where it was announced, and of course there is the government’s decision to award £2500 of taxpayers’ money to anyone buying an electric vehicle. Even so, prices are only a whisker under £30,000 which is quite a brisk entry point. So it had better be good.

There’s a bit of a dual-personality thing going on with cars like these. They need to be quiet, emission-free and practical in the city yet they need to be pretty capable at being a more normal car out on the faster roads. It must be said this plug-in Prius scores quite well on both fronts.

Extra sound-deadening makes this a good car to creep around the streets in, so there’s little noise to alert pedestrians to your presence and little noise in the cabin bar a bit of road noise when the surface is rough. However this happy state is only good for about 25 miles. In theory the £1500 solar roof package should add another three miles a day. Go and look at the sky and consider why this theory may not become a reality every day.

However, out of the city and the 1.8-litre petrol engine kicks in with a seamless shift and then you have some more performance. It provides more than adequate power but not everyone is going to enjoy the sliding-scale of engine revs unconnected to road speed. It’s not clutch slip, it’s the e-CVT gearbox and it’s not to everyone’s tastes.

This latest model handles adequately although it can float about a bit over crests. It’s certainly a better drive than before, with both handling and ride improved.

Inside there’s less space because of the bigger battery. This is most noticeable in the rear, in terms of rear seating and boot space, and up front the infotainment doesn’t take up a lot of space either at 4.2in. You get a fair amount of kit, and in this Business Edition Plus that includes sat nav, Bluetooth, DAB radio, auto lights and a head-up display. You’d need to go to Excel trim to get all the rest like auto wipers, self-parking and sensors front and back.

But would you buy one, in whatever trim? The CO2 figure of 22g/km is attractive for business users, no question. But this remains a bit of a niche product. It’s about £6000 more expensive than the standard hybrid, and you’d need to do a lot of miles to claw that back. And you’d need to have the charging fully sorted, otherwise you’re simply going to run out of electric charge quite frequently unless you’re just doing short city hops.

If this is the sort of thing you really crave, we’d go for a VW Golf GTE or a BMW 330e instead.